


Idle

by trill_gutterbug



Category: The Pacific (TV)
Genre: Ficlet, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-10
Updated: 2019-11-10
Packaged: 2021-01-26 18:57:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21378949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trill_gutterbug/pseuds/trill_gutterbug
Summary: Eventually it dawns on Eugene to wonder if it still counts as a sin if you never do the damn deed.
Relationships: Merriell "Snafu" Shelton/Eugene Sledge, implied Eugene/Sid
Comments: 8
Kudos: 31





	Idle

Eventually it dawns on Eugene to wonder if it still counts as a sin if you never do the damn deed. 

If there’s never time for it, never room or privacy or even the physical capacity to get a hard-on, does it count? He can’t imagine passing up the chance to sleep for the sake of doing something potentially sinful with his dick. Wouldn’t wish the unwashed, cold-shriveled, inexperienced excuse of it on anyone, either way. In this rain, in the mud and chill, unstrapping his dungarees long enough to take a shit is hardly bearable - the thought of doing it for anything more pleasurable is so absurd it makes Eugene snort out loud.

“What?” Snafu mumbles against his neck. 

The rock they’re propped on has been sluicing a steady waterfall down Eugene’s back for a while now, ever since their soaked canvas bellied deep enough to sag in one corner, but he’s too exhausted to even consider moving. It wouldn’t make a difference anyhow. The mud is up past their ankles, but at least here there’s a little shelf of rock keeping their asses above the worst of it. 

“Nothing,” Eugene says, because he might be the only one of them thinking of this situation in terms of sin. It took long enough to even occur to him because it hadn’t seemed anything worthy of note, how Snafu leaned against him and how Eugene leaned back. Everyone is up on everyone else all the time, there’s no helping it. They’re all too tired and cold and scared out of their minds to care whose elbows go where or whose back someone falls asleep against. As far as imagination goes, Eugene has the advantage of a youth spent in feverish, guilty fantasies about the boy who brought the newspaper, and the one who split wood for them in the fall, and the one who worked at the hardware store all summer. He and Sid were kissing behind bike sheds when they were thirteen. It’s always on his mind. 

“Then shut up,” says Snafu. He’s curled up half on top of Eugene, one leg crooked over Eugene’s to keep himself out of the mud. Eugene had thought he was asleep.

“Sorry,” Eugene mutters. His jaw is balanced on top of Snafu’s helmet. It would be uncomfortable, but he’s mostly numb. He stopped shivering a while ago, though he’s not sure if that’s because Snafu’s warmed him up, or because he’s gone hypothermic. 

“I was havin’ a nice dream,” Snafu says a minute later, when Eugene thought he was back asleep.

Eugene waits. He thinks about his own dreams, when he has them. Nothing but fear and flight. “‘bout what?” he mumbles, when Snafu doesn’t volunteer.

Snafu shifts against him. He makes a little grumbling noise under his breath, a whine like a puppy denied the teat. “Don’t remember.”

Eugene doesn’t have the energy to snort again.

“A picnic,” Snafu says at last. “In a meadow.”

Eugene’s eyes slide shut. He tries to remember what a meadow feels like, how it would be to sit in a warm sunny place with fresh grass under his hands and a gentle breeze in his hair. After a while, he gives up. It’s farcical, like imagining the secret lives of circus clowns. Childish. “Sounds nice,” he says.

Snafu grunts. Doesn’t sound like he has the energy for it any more than Eugene. His cold nose rubs Eugene’s throat, settling deeper into the crook of it. He’s not shivering anymore either. Eugene drifts for a while, ears pricked for the sound of approaching footsteps, or snapping twigs, or the cock of a gun, while the rest of him heads toward sleep like water circling a drain. He’s not sure if he’s ever slept with his eyes open, but he thinks he could learn.


End file.
